Rosemary's Baby (1968)

'This is not a dream! This is really happening!'

‘This is not a dream! This is really happening!’

The Devil was everywhere in the 1960s and 70s, lurking surreptitiously in every suburban corner. Mark Gatiss and Matthew Sweet's Black Aquarius (2022), a brilliantly sardonic podcast for BBC Radio 4, is well worth a listen, exploring this popular cultural phenomenon: a world of Dennis Wheatley paperbacks, accounts of Los Angeles coffee cup covens, lurid tales in The News of the World and The Sunday Express (of ruined churches and titillating rites in the Home Counties), do-it-yourself books on tarot, astrology and witchcraft; and of course film: Joan Fontaine in The Witches (1966), The Devil Rides Out (1968), based on the original Dennis Wheatley novel; The Mephisto Waltz (1971), starring Jacqueline Bisset; sexploitation flick, Virgin Witch (1972); George Romero’s Season of the Witch (1973), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973) and an episode of the British television series, Hammer House of Horror (1980), a last gasp of the phenomenon, which by the mid 80s, or most certainly the 90s, had petered out.

‘The ambience of a 1950s romantic drama…’

Which takes us to Rosemary’s Baby (1968), based on Ira Levin’s best-selling thriller of 1967, Roman Polanski’s first American film and probably one of his best. A young, attractive couple, Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse (played by Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes) move into a spacious flat in the Bramford, a rambling old apartment building based on the Dakota, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Here, they encounter the neighbours from Hell- in more ways than one.

‘Dazed and confused: dazzling street sequences…’

Roman Polanski’s wife, Sharon Tate, on location, New York, 1967.

Today, Ira Levin’s tale of devil worship in contemporary Manhattan seems deliciously retro, from Mia’s waif-like Vidal Sassoon hair-do to the dodgy dip at the cocktail party, from the boxed ‘shirt from the New Yorker’ to the yellow taxis swishing up Park Avenue- but, of course, back then, this was just normal, every day, city life. In the same way that Bryan Forbes shot the otherwise disturbing The Stepford Wives (1975) in the broad daylight of summer, Rosemary’s Baby avoids the cliché of the well-worn horror- the opening titles deliberately creating the ambience of a 1950s romantic drama. And to the audiences of 1968, Rosemary’s Baby must have seemed modern, even avant-garde, especially the dazzling off-the-cuff street sequences (shot on hand-held camera) as a confused Mia wanders across Fifth Avenue- similar to a dazed Catherine Deneuve roaming the streets of South Kensington in Polanski’s Repulsion (1965).

‘Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby: a brilliant performance…’

Mia’s brilliant. Rosemary’s Baby was her first proper film- it made her an international star- although, at the time, America already knew her from Peyton Place and her marriage to Frank Sinatra. And, of course, she’s not just pretty; she’s incredibly cute- bringing out protective masculine sensibilities- or at least in me. How can the John Cassavetes character treat her that way? He’s truly awful! Mia’s especially good at fragile, damaged women. I’m thinking Daisy Fay in Jack Clayton’s The Great Gatsby (1974) or Jacqueline de Bellefort in Death in the Nile (1978).

‘The neighbours from Hell…’

Ruth Gordon puts in a brilliant performance too, for which she deservedly won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress- as the ghastly, gin-soaked Minnie Castevet: all blue-rinse and Bridge; and right from the beginning, you know there’s something not quite right about the eccentric and nosy Castevets- they make their first entrance on West 72nd Street, directly outside the Dakota, bathed in an eerie light: a witches’ night, actually very similar to the lighting in the car crash scene in Losey’s Accident (1967), which we covered in a previous post.

‘Eerie light: like a witches’ night…’

West 72nd Street has its own psychogeography. Back in the 90s, I spent time in New York, and stayed at The Olcott, a splendid seedy, run-down hotel cum apartment set (sitting room, kitchenette and tiled bathroom) with polished mahogany and creaky 1920s lift, like something from an old gangster movie. Martin Scorsese used The Olcott in Taxi Driver (1976)- a film we will be returning to at a later time. It’s also where Mark Chapman holed up in 1980- before the slaying of John Lennon outside the entrance to the Dakota building, only a few yards down. West 72nd Street also makes an appearance in The Stepford Wives (1975), it’s where the nuclear family live before departing for the sunnier climes of Connecticut- in an apartment block, just across the street from the Dakota. The Dakota itself was built in the 1880s, an exercise in the German Renaissance style, and its twisted turrets, spires and gables evoke the atmosphere of the American Gothic, like a haunted house from Edward Gorey or H. P. Lovecraft.

‘The Dakota: like a haunted house from Edward Gorey or H. P. Lovecraft…’

As a director, Polanski’s a perfectionist, with vision- every shot controlled and planned beforehand- a quality, apparently, which brought him into conflict with John Cassavetes- in his other life, a director of the freeform avant-garde, with a very different approach. But playing an up-and-coming actor on the make, Cassavetes is terrific (old-school cool), although having watched Rosemary’s Baby again last night, I had failed to appreciate just how awful his character truly is, with no redeeming qualities. But then, nothing like selling your soul to the Devil, is there? And as with Joseph Losey, Polanski has a fine sense of detail. Throughout Rosemary’s Baby we hear the distant, echoing sound of Beethoven’s Für Elise, played badly on an out of tune piano, helping to create a sense of reality and space. In truth, the Woodhouse’s rather desirable apartment is a set, built in faraway Los Angeles. And if you listen closely, Für Elise improves with the passing of time.

‘Rosemary’s dream: a masterclass in direction…’

What else? Rosemary’s dream sequence, too, is a masterclass in direction. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any other film which recreates the sense of what it’s actually like to dream so well: the drifting in and out of sleep, the stillness; the muffled sound, the slightly out-of-focus saturated colour, surreal events which make sense, sort of- but don’t. It’s genius. But then Rosemary’s Baby is, in my opinion, required viewing for Grown Ups- even for those who don’t like horror. It’s also, perhaps, a film which defies description:

Question: When is a horror film not a horror film? Answer: When it’s Rosemary’s Baby.

‘Fragile, damaged and Vidal Sassoon…’

‘John Cassavetes: old-school cool…’

So there you have it. Rosemary’s Baby. One of the best films of the 1960s and a ‘must have’ for anyone’s film list. I watched it on DVD- which includes a host of tasty, special features, including an illuminating interview with Roman Polanski. Rosemary’s Baby is also available on Blu-Ray and digital download (Amazon Prime Video).

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